Thumbs Quotes - Page 11

As a rule of thumb, if the government wants you to know it, it probably isn't true.

Craig Murray

War, Government, Want

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There are no green thumbs or black thumbs. There are only gardeners and non-gardeners. Gardeners are the ones who ruin after ruin get on with the high defiance of nature herself, creating, in the very face of her chaos and tornado, the bower of roses and the pride of irises. It sounds very well to garden a 'natural way'. You may see the natural way in any desert, any swamp, any leech-filled laurel hell. Defiance, on the other hand, is what makes gardeners.

Henry Mitchell

Nature, Pride, Garden

Henry Mitchell (2003). “The Essential Earthman: Henry Mitchell on Gardening”, p.3, Indiana University Press

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The rule of thumb for the old backpacking was that the weight of your pack should equal the weight of yourself and the kitchen range combined. Just a casual glance at the full pack sitting on the floor could give you a double hernia and fuse four vertebrae. After carrying the pack all day, you had to remember to tie one leg to a tree before you dropped it. Otherwise you would float off into space. The pack eliminated the need for any special kind of ground-gripping shoes, because your feet would sink a foot and a half into hard-packed earth, two inches into solid rock.

Patrick F. McManus

Journey, Feet, Hiking

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I don't like being under someone elses thumb. I'm very supportive of other female artists, especially those trying to make their own statement... trying to do what they want instead of being someone else's Barbie doll.

Irene Cara

Artist, Barbie Dolls, Supportive

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With the bass it's another thing. I don't need to use alternate thumb-picking as much. Even though Jack says he loves it. My thought is that it might irritate him somewhat.

Jorma Kaukonen

Music, Needs, Use

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A good rule of thumb is that any environment that consistently leaves you feeling bad about who you are is the wrong environment.

Laurie Helgoe

Feelings, Introvert, Environment

Laurie A Helgoe (2013). “Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength”, p.185, Sourcebooks, Inc.

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If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped?

Oswald Chambers

Faith, Inspiration, Wine

Oswald Chambers (2015). “Called of God: Extracts from My Utmost for His Highest on the Missionary Call”, p.23, Discovery House

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Folks, it's time to evolve. That's why we're troubled. You know why our institutions are failing us, the church, the state, everything's failing? It's because, um - they're no longer relevant. We're supposed to keep evolving. Evolution did not end with us growing opposable thumbs. You do know that, right?

Bill Hicks

Revolutionary Ideas, Church, Growing

"Filling Up the Hump". Comedy album by Bill Hicks, 1993.

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A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

Carlos Castaneda

Spiritual, Courage, Warrior

Carlos Castaneda (1974). “Tales of Power”, p.154, Simon and Schuster

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If someone steals your password, you can change it. But if someone steals your thumbprint, you can't get a new thumb. The failure modes are very different.

Bruce Schneier

Different, Thumbprints, Stealing

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In a household of toddlers and pets, we discover this rule of thumb about happy families - that they are least two-thirds incontinent.

Robert Breault

Family, Two, Unity

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You've got a lot pulling at your time already - which may be the best reason to start cultivating your green thumb.

Steven Wilson

Time, May, Green

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Galen cupped her cheek with his uninjured hand, his thumb caressing the rise of satin-covered bone. She trembled, but didn’t pull away.

Gena Showalter

Hands, Bones, Satin

Gena Showalter (2016). “The Darkest Seduction”, p.323, HQN Books

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Then your fingers moved down to my chin. You pushed it up with your thumb to look at me, almost like you were studying me in the artificial lights above my head. And, I mean, you really looked at me … with eyes like two stars. [...] And I had wings fluttering away inside me all right. Big fat moth wings. You trapped me easily, drew me toward you like I was already in the net.

Lucy Christopher

Stars, Mean, Eye

Lucy Christopher (2014). “Stolen”, p.10, Scholastic Inc.

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But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get." I know what she's talking about. The something deeper and more secret. It's like cracks inside of you. Like there are these fault lines where things don't meet up right.

John Green

Blue, Talking, Somewhere Else

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Work freely and rollickingly as though you were talking to a friend who loves you. Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters.

Brenda Ueland

Love You, Talking, Three

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As a rule of thumb, I would submit that if you need to call your floss provider, for any reason, you are probably not ready for this level of oral hygiene.

Bill Bryson

Hygiene, Needs, Levels

Bill Bryson (2010). “Notes From A Big Country: Journey Into the American Dream”, p.121, Random House

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When I return to the world, I will be a man. I will walk among you. I will lick my lips with my small, dexterous tongue. I will shake hands with other men, grasping firmly with my opposable thumbs. And I will teach all people that I know. And when I see a man or a woman or a child in trouble, I will extend my hand, both metaphorically and physically. I will offer my hand. To him. To her. To you. To the world. I will be a good citizen, a good partner in the endeaver of life that we all share.

Garth Stein

Children, Men, Hands

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From in the shadow she calls. And in the shadow she finds a way, finds a way. And in the shadow she crawls, clutching her faded photograph. My image under her thumb. Yes with a message for my heart. She’s been everybody else’s girl maybe one day she’ll be her own.

Tori Amos

Girl, Heart, Shadow

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Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.

Neil Gaiman

Beautiful, Ocean, Adventure

Neil Gaiman (2009). “The Graveyard Book”, p.182, A&C Black

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As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says 'you are nothing', I will be a writer.

Hunter S. Thompson

Writing, Fate, Dark

Hunter S. Thompson, Beef Torrey, Kevin Simonson (2008). “Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson”, p.10, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. “Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.

Harper Lee

Wall, Believe, Sweat

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There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C...(before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy.... Well, this one left them all behind.

William Goldman

Couple, Kissing, Rating

William Goldman (2013). “The Princess Bride”, p.48, A&C Black

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We have these earthly bodies. We don't know what they want. Half the time, we pretend they are under our mental thumb, but that is the illusion of the healthy and the protected. Of sedate lovers. For the body has emotions it conceives and carries through without concern for anyone or anything else. Love is one of those, I guess. Going back to something very old knit into the brain as we were growing. Hopeless. Scorching. Ordinary.

Louise Erdrich

Love Is, Healthy, Brain

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But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.

Sylvia Plath

Truth, Blue, Somewhere Else

Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.75, Hamilton Books

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